The Other Side of the Light

It’s #hunterweek! It’s also a I Have A New computer Week! It’s a lil’ beuty, that computer. I returned from a walk and there is was, courtesy of my partner. A new computer means a lot of things. Most of all it meant a return to World of Warcraft. Much can be said about returning to Azeroth after a forced 8 months long break but I won’t say it here. That’s for the future (likely I have to start Archaeology again on some toon, just so I have time to do something else but killing internet dragons; it’s amzing how much work you can get done while flying from Uldum to Winterspring).

Hunter week, alas. As it happened I was lucky enough to acutally have a hunter. She’s the kid sister of teh family, Cassanna is her name and … I was utterly bored with her. Sorry Cass, but you’re not a very talkative draenei you know. There’s more to life than the grain weight of buckshot or the air velocity of the New Bow (“I was like, whoa! Sis! This damned bow is amazing! You want hear about how I once skinned a worm in 5 sec… you’re going? I thought you loved me!”).

Cass is a bit … well. It’s hard to socialize when you spend most of the time in the outbacks of civilisation literally killing for a living.

A few weeks before my old computer said “No!” I had more or less shelved Cassanna. The daily routine of shoot, kill, skin had worn me out. Hunter – a class I actually enjoy – was no fun no more. For many a reason leveling Cassanna pre 5.1 was a pain in the ass. Northrend was slow. Slow! I had blasted through Outlands in less than two days and then I hit the wall of the north. Outleveling a complete expansion, the burning Crusade, in less than half of a week had left me with a backlog of outdated Leatherworking. I spent more time in Terokkar oneshotting than questing in Northrend. by the time I hit 70 I was fed up.

I rarely do dungeons on a hunter. While I’m not a very competetive person by nature I do enjoy being in the top 3 (or first). Somehow – I have no idea why since every other class* works out just perfectly – I can’t keep up on a hunter. No matter what spec I’m in. I loathe Beast Mastery. Teh only reason I specced BM was the rare pets I can tame. So, in 99% of the time I’m Markmanship. It’s perfect for questing (and hunting). But it is … slow. Or rather – it was slow.

To my utter amazement this is no longer the case. I returned to my dusty character Cassanna the day before yesterday. She was 70. She is now 85. How the heck did that happen!? Ah …

The XP requirement for Wrath of the Lich King has been reduced by 30%. 8 months absence meant a lot of rested XP. With heirlooms there was a definite boost as well (I know there’s a few Darkmoon Faire items as well but I haven’t used them; the Faire is boring).

With the help of a guildie – the masterful hunter Viszla, btw! – we stormed the Nexus. Then we continued to storm a string of dungeons. In about three hours I boomed from 70 to 73, then my rested XP ran out. But all in all the wall of the north is no more; I roflstomped my solo way through quests and hunting for most of a day and all of a sudden I hit level 80. That was in Halls of Lightning, by the way, with a nice boost from the master hunter mentioned above. It took another day to reach 85 so now I’m all set for not only Pandaria but also the very reason I once rolled Cassanna: Deth’tilac <The Smouldering Darkness> .

What with the headline, you say? Oh, that. Zed the Raptor is a well behaved raptor. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the vacation photo from Hyjal.